


The Doctor & The Detective

by SilverMiko



Series: Sight Unseen [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/M, Jim from IT, Molly Blogs, Molly is so done with his shit, Series 1 referenced, Sherlock is an idiot, Unrequited Love, it's just a little crush or is it?, slow-burn, those complicated feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-12
Updated: 2017-02-12
Packaged: 2018-09-23 20:07:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9674117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverMiko/pseuds/SilverMiko
Summary: How did Sherlock Holmes and Molly Hooper begin working together professionally? It started with a body of course, and somewhere down the line Molly's feelings, much to her chagrin, begin changing while Sherlock, as always, remains seemingly oblivious to these tiny details. But that doesn't stop him from deducing her out of relationships with other men.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Part of the "Sight Unseen" collection.

London, England  
Borough Market  
2010

 

“So what is he like nowadays, Mols? Still weird as ever?” Meena asked, as she stabbed her plastic fork into the meat pie covered in mashed potatoes and gravy and took a hearty bite. Molly picked at her pasta anxiously, twirling the fork but not putting anything on the tongs.  
“Oh you know, same old Sherlock. Though he has been asking for body parts lately. Were he anyone else, I’d worry but well, you know it goes with him!” she said, trying to be cheerful.  
In truth, she realized she sounded bloody mental. One who was a specialist registrar in pathology did not just loan out body parts. Or let a civilian engage in experiments with riding crops and tasers. Or really, most of the things Sherlock Holmes seemed to always, always manage to get her to agree to.  
“Honestly, sounds like he’s a handful. Why do you put up with him? You never liked him much at school, well apart from the whole snogging him by accident thing. If it’s just helping the police, I’d get it, but it seems like you do whatever he asks.”  
Molly sighed, not sure how to answer. Why did she put up with it, indeed? It wasn’t really to help Inspector LeStrade, despite that she herself had grown more interested in the case work, and it wasn’t like it was going to advance her career. No, she knew why; her stupid, traitorous emotions.  
Maybe it was the constant proximity, working together on and off for the past six years, or the fact that he seemed to prefer her assistance most out of all the hospital staff that had gotten to her. Or, despite his moments of awful bluntness, he’d be making the random compliment now and then towards her. ‘Molly, is that a new jumper? It’s...nice.’ ‘Molly, your hair looks nice today.’  
At first, she admitted it made her flattered, made her cheeks warm. It was not typical for Sherlock Holmes to pay compliments, even in his weird fashion that took her some time to translate. But then she began adding things up and seeing the pattern; he always paid her these kind words when he needed something, or when he suspected she may or may not be starting to get cross for him over other observations that were decidedly not nice. ‘Molly, that eyeliner? Is it new? Really doesn’t suit you.’  
It wasn’t unusual for one to butter another person up to gain favors from, but in a way she thought Sherlock was perhaps above all that. Or maybe, she had him on some pedestal. She saw what he was doing, but perhaps she kept agreeing to help, kept letting herself be flattered because a large part of her oddly hoped one day he’d mean it. One day he’s notice her, really notice her.  
“I guess,” Molly replied, “it keeps things from getting dull.”  
She didn’t need to even wait for Meena’s skeptical expression to know they both thought that was a shite response.  
“I think, Molly Hooper, that for some reason beyond me you actually fancy the git.”  
“What? Sherlock Holmes?? No!” she said, taking a huge bite of her pasta and hoping it distracted from the panic in her face.  
“Methinks the lady doth protest too much,” Meena retorted, then looked at her watch, “Bollocks, I’m going to be late! Sorry to eat and run, thanks for meeting for lunch!”  
“No problem, it’s not like I don’t live around the corner.”  
Molly had sold the house in Richmond and moved to a small flat in Borough, which had been her home for a few years now. It was nice not being in The City but just close enough by walking or the Tube, and she had always loved the market for some reason, ever since the first time her father took her there and bought her a hot bun. She hadn’t had a lot of free time lately, between shifts and extra hours helping London’s only consulting detective, but the stars had aligned and on this one Friday afternoon, she had a few hours free.  
And then her mobile rang.  
“Hullo, Sherlock.”  
“Molly, I need you to come to the lab right away. I need to conduct an experiment of vital importance.”  
“Oh, okay, I guess. I was just finishing up my lunch…”  
“Owe you some crisps?”  
She sighed. She should say no, she should just say no and get on with her pasta and yet…  
“Right then, be just a tick.”  
God, she was so whipped. She shoved what little she could of her lunch into her mouth and left, catching the Tube and tossing her hair into a ponytail as she exited. Why did she do this to herself? She thought back to how this latest chapter with him began, in the very morgue she was meeting him at.

 

St. Bart’s Hospital  
2004

 

She wished she could say she was wearing her best dress, that she looked amazing with her hair perfect and her makeup just right but when Sherlock Holmes walked into the morgue trailing behind Sergeant LeStrade, Molly was midway through sawing through a chest and covered in more than a bit of viscera.  
“Hooper.”  
She jumped, almost dropping the small medical saw and turned it off, pushing her protective visor up and setting the saw down.  
“Sherlock! My gosh, it’s been, what, ages? What are you doing here?” she asked, trying far too hard to be chipper. Trying far too hard to act like this was the first time in years she’s seen him and not months, not since she treated him per his brother’s request.  
He looked at her for a moment, and she felt herself flush. It was as if he could almost see through it, but then that’s impossible. He was unconscious still when she had gone home, and she had avoided his room as much as possible.  
As the surprise of seeing him again so soon wore down, she realized it.  
“Wait, you just said my name.”  
He furrowed his eyebrows, puzzled.  
“Yes?” he asked, confused.  
“I-it’s just that I thought, well I had assumed you’d…”  
“That I what?”  
She swallowed, and then waved her hand.  
“Nothing, nothing! Forget it, it was silly.”  
“Still haven’t quite mastered small talk. Okay then, at least you’ll do when it comes to work.”  
She wasn’t sure if it was a compliment or an insult. With Sherlock it was so hard to tell.  
“Dr. Hooper, we need to see body PC Donovan had brought in last night. Mr. Holmes here has special dispensation to assist us with the case as a consultant.”  
“Like a consulting detective?” she asked, making idly chatter. It was a buffer really; keep things light, keep talk shallow. Maybe then she’d stop remembering him pale and near dying, his life literally in her hands.  
He looked at her for a moment, as if something was quickly snapped into place inside his head.  
“Yes, something like that,” he said, as if realizing he liked how it sound. She’d let herself feel the tiniest victory at inspiring the thought, even though she didn’t know why needed the validation. They weren’t friends or anything, not really. But he had remembered her name. Remembered his thoughts on her conversational skills (which really she ought to be more pissed at his comments in that regard) and he hadn’t deleted her.  
Sherlock Holmes remembered her.  
Molly smiled a bit to herself at the thought and wheeled out the body in question.  
“You’re lucky, haven’t gotten around to this one yet, the paperwork’s still going through.”  
Sherlock moved to the slab, bending over the body and taking on that expression Molly remembered well from school.  
After a minute, LeStrade bounced on his heel.  
“Well?”  
Sherlock stood up quickly and took a sharp inhale of breath.  
“The bruising around the collarbone suggests it wasn’t just from the steering wheel on impact, no, someone held her down...someone with considerable forearm strength. Her hair’s been recently dyed if the unnatural coloring of her roots is any indication…” he lifted a hand up, looking at the fingers. “Broken nail, suggestive she fought back but not for long. She couldn’t while she was unconscious which means there was no way she was awake when the car hit the water. Someone put her in the car, making it look like an accident and I’m sure once Hooper here runs her tests she’ll find the water level in the lungs inconsistent with the levels one who was still alive should have in their respiratory system. This a murder poorly disguised as an accident.”  
Molly blinked, mouth open.  
“Wow! That was…”  
“Incredible, yes I know, if not too easy.”  
“Easy?” LeStrade sputtered, eyes wide, “I’d hate to see what you consider hard.”  
“Well, have I proven myself worthwhile yet or does New Scotland Yard have other consulting detectives to work with?”  
“Dr. Hooper, how long will it take you to confirm what Holmes’ just hypothesized?”  
“A day or two, maybe? And Inspector I keep meaning to say, I really prefer just being called Molly, if you don’t mind. Dr. Hooper is so formal,” she laughed, almost too high-pitched.  
“Alright then, thanks Molly, our division will follow up with you in a few days.”  
LeStrade turned to leave, but paused when Sherlock did not follow.  
“Aren’t you coming, Holmes?”  
“No, still work to be done here and paperwork really isn’t my thing.”  
“You want to stay and help?” Molly asked, surprised, “I’m not sure you’re even allowed…”  
“Nope, got permission from Mike Stamford. He owes me a favor.”  
He still popped his ‘P’s sometimes, in that posh-yet-sarcastic way.  
“Oh okay,” she said, realizing how awfully simple she sounded.  
“If this is going to work, I expect the same rules to apply as they did in chem lab.”  
“If what’s going to work?”  
“You assisting me in the forensics work. Sorry, was that obvious just now? I forget what it’s like for other tiny minds.”  
He was still arrogant, but in that way where she was sure he didn’t actually understand how he came across.  
“Assist you, Sherlock, I’m still technically in training for pathology! I’m not even sure I’d be able to help you properly.”  
“Why not?”  
Why not, indeed?  
“I...I...I mean I guess we know how to work with each other but…”  
“Splendid. Crisps?”  
“Huh?”  
He looked at her as if he was almost exasperated that she didn’t understand him.  
“It’s going to be a couple of hours and I could use the sodium, thanks.”  
She blinked, realizing he was telling her, no, expecting her to get his crisps for him.  
“Sherlock, I’m not your…”  
“I know it was you, Molly,” he said, cutting her off, and saying her name for the first time.  
Not Hooper. Not Molly Hooper.  
Molly.  
It was galling how much she delighted in the way he spoke her name.  
“Sorry Sherlock, I don’t follow,” she replied, confused.  
“That night. Mycroft for some reason wanted me to believe it was Mike who treated me but Mike doesn’t wear Clinique Happy. It was the perfume you preferred in school.”  
Her eyes widened. He remembered even that? How did he not delete that inconsequential fact?  
“I thought you’d forgotten.”  
“Your perfume?”  
Oh Lord, were they really having this conversation right now? She swallowed nervously.  
“No, me. I figured you’d deleted me, as you called it.”  
He looked at her again, puzzled, but before he could saying anything the words practically streamed out of her mouth.  
“I mean it’s really not a big deal and anyway, you wanted crisps, right? Let me just go get those for you.”  
She exited the room short of running, feeling so awfully silly but so flattered that he remembered those details about her. And maybe it was because of that she needed to tell him this arrangement wasn’t going to work. The last thing she needed was to be like this, especially around a man as emotional as a wall.  
“Right,” she said to the vending machine, “I’ll just tell him, thanks but no thanks I have too much on my plate. As if he won’t see through it.”  
With the packet of crisp in hand, she walked back into the morgue ready to turn him down. Ready to try to go back to her normal existence.  
“Sherlock,” she said, placing the crisps down on the table next to him, “about working together…”  
“You didn’t let me finish.”  
“Finish what?”  
“What I was trying to say a moment ago. That I know you treated me that night, in which I’m grateful you’ve been paying attention to your training and gotten a lot better at thinking quickly. The point is, you helped save my life, Molly. Thank you.”  
All her quickly rehearsed words of rejecting his offer died on her tongue.  
“Of course, Sherlock. After what you did for me with my dad, and even regardless I mean I’m a doctor but…”  
“Just say ‘you’re welcome’, Molly.”  
“You’re welcome?”  
“There we go. Now, do you happen to have anything worthwhile to make a garrote out of laying around?”  
And with that, their sporadic working relationship began. 

***

Maybe once every other month or so he’d show up at her lab without little much as a hello, and there was that time he just vanished for almost seven months, which she suspected had more to do with his brother than himself, but somehow over the next six years they fell into these random patterns. It hadn’t taken her long to remember how to maneuver around him in a lab, how to decipher his shorthand, and when she needed to make something to eat suddenly appear. She’d moved past Foundation doctor and become a specialist registrar, one of those personal details Sherlock overlooked but that newly promoted Inspector LeStrade remembered and suggested they take her to lunch. She’d somehow become the doctor they worked exclusively with, and she’d gotten to know LeStrade, Greg, through the years and thought him a pretty great bloke, much like an older brother she never had.  
She knew he was trying to be nice to her by insisting they get lunch, which Sherlock only ended up agreeing to because he was hungry anyway. He’d stated her advancement to specialist registrar was a foregone conclusion, hardly remarkable. She knew, even though the remark bristled at first, that he didn’t meant it like that. It was his own strange way of saying there was doubt she’d succeed. She was getting better at interpreting his bluntness, sometimes.  
Even though she did end up leaving lunch early, saying she had to get back to the hospital, when he remarked on the two pounds she had gained, ‘oh she must be in a new relationship.’ LeStrade had given her a sympathetic look of apology, she just pretended it was okay. For all Sherlock’s digs at LeStrade’s skills as a detective, the officer apparently was quite aware of Molly’s feelings.  
Oh, she did try to date, it wasn’t as if she waited for anything to happen that very likely wouldn’t. She’d had some boyfriends over the years despite her inconvenient crush (Lord, was she thirteen again?) on Sherlock, but sometimes it just didn’t work out for one reason or another. But then sometimes, as with Franco years ago, Sherlock deduced things and whether he meant to or not, would let an initial thought pop out.  
Dave, seemingly great barrister. Married with a wife in Surrey.  
“At least he took the wedding band off before he picked you up.”  
Andrew, the pharmaceutical rep who apparently went the extra mile to seal the deal.  
“At least it’s no longer a conflict of interest.”  
Mark, ah, she almost actually really liked Mark the banker.  
“Think he’d give me the number to his dealer?”  
She’d learn to not have her dates pick her up at work anymore after the last time. It was a bit annoying, but then she was never totally serious about any of them either. It was a good time, a distraction, but she admittedly got more excitement over helping with a case or writing up a successful medical journal article than having a pint with some bloke she only maybe 60% had serious feelings for.  
And so here she was, thirty-one, with a great career, being a respected doctor… and getting more delight out of a few manufactured compliments than from genuine platitudes of “you’re a nice girl, Molly” or “I really think I fancy you, Molly.” No, her stupid heart preferred Sherlock’s clumsy pleasantries.  
Maybe she should get a cat, like Meena suggested.  
Shaking the thought away, she walked into the hospital and grabbed her coat out of her small office, making her way downstairs to the morgue where Sherlock stood waiting, immaculately dressed as always in a black suit and white button down.  
“Afternoon, Sherlock, what’s so urgent?”  
“Ah, Molly, about time. I need a body. I’ve got a theory and just need to prove I’m right since Scotland Yard apparently requires quantifiable data more these days.  
She repressed her sigh. It was never urgent, no matter what he said. Rest in peace, half eaten pasta lunch. Wheeling the body out, she resolved to not let it get her down.  
She watched Sherlock lean over and unzip the bag.  
“How fresh?”  
“Just in, sixty-seven, natural causes. He used to work here. I knew him, he was nice.”  
She could tell Sherlock was in a good mood, he had a puzzle before him to solve for a bit. This was at likely at least a seven or eight on his scale of worthwhile pursuit.  
He stood up straight, looked at her intently.  
“Fine. We’ll start with the riding crop.”  
She nodded, walking to the cabinet he’d somehow reserved over the years full and grabbed the crop.  
“I’ll just be outside doing some paperwork for a moment while you have at it.”  
He nodded, and she grabbed a chart and exited the morgue, walking up the short ramp to stand in the hallway a half-floor above and split her attention between her notes and Sherlock. It was quite the display, watching him whip the cadaver and admittedly she found his more hands on experiments fascinating. Perhaps that was the attraction, watching his brilliant, beautiful mind in action and knowing she had been singled out to work with him on this side of things. Or perhaps she was just one of the few people who put up with him. Her pride liked to believe it was former. After five minutes, she quickly took the tube of light coral lipstick out her pocket, put it on, and walked back into lab, thinking of some great quip to get his attention. After years, she was going to go for it and pluck up her courage to do something about this.  
“Bad day, was it?”  
She thought it was funny, but he didn’t even register the joke.  
“I need to know what bruises form in the next twenty minutes. A man’s alibi depends on it. Text me.”  
She didn’t need to even reply, they both knew she’d do it, so she didn’t need to waste her words on that.  
Come on, Molly, just go for it!  
She bit her lip. Here went nothing.  
“Listen, I was wondering. Maybe later when you’re finished…”  
He looked up at her, and she was surprised he actually was paying attention and listening. Usually he only seemed to half-hear anything she said not pertaining to a case. He studied her for a quick second, noticing something.  
“You’re wearing lipstick. You weren’t wearing lipstick before.”  
He had noticed? She felt her cheeks warm. She had put the lipstick on more for her own confidence and not to catch his attention, so it floored her that he noticed.  
Say something, say something…  
“I uh, refreshed it a bit.”  
He looked at her again for a long moment, his face curiously open, before it fell back into his usual neutral expression again.  
“Sorry, you were saying?”  
She took a quick breath, putting her heart on the line.  
“I was wondering if you’d like to have coffee?”  
Oh God, she’s said it. She’d actually said it. Molly Hooper asked Sherlock Holmes out. Would he just reject her? Would he actually accept? Would he go into his speech about how he didn’t do dating? She knew that, of course, but with all the years spent together she had maybe hoped…  
“Black, two sugars please. I’ll be upstairs.”  
What?...Whaaat?  
He stood up and without a word left the room, unaware of what just happened or that he had left her stunned in silence in his wake.  
If you’d like to have coffee….  
Like to have a coffee, like a cup of coffee, the cup of coffee she’d fetch for them often. He had misunderstood her, and a small part of her wondered whether it was deliberate or not.  
“Okay.” she said, in a small, breathless voice.  
She didn’t know what to do but stand there for a moment, alone. She’d finally worked up her nerve, finally decided to make a move, and bloody Sherlock Holmes, the brilliant consulting detective, had no bloody clue what she had meant. She wanted to laugh, or lock herself in the supply closet and cry. She wasn’t terribly sure of which was winning in the moment. So she stood there, waiting for the twenty minutes to pass, writing the results down, because it was better than banging her head against the tile wall.  
Once she was done she went upstairs to the lounge, poured the cup of coffee to his specifications, and started to leave to head down the hall to the lab. On her way out of the lounge, she caught her reflection for a moment in the mirror.  
Suddenly annoyed, she raised her free hand up and smeared her lipstick off onto the back of her hand furiously. Wasn’t like she needed it to work in her favor anymore.  
And so, Molly Hooper made her way to the lab where Mike Stamford and another man, one she vaguely recognized from a few years back (another training doctor?) stood talking to Sherlock.  
She’d handed the coffee to him, wanting desperately to flee his company, but he’d noticed her missing lipstick and as if the day couldn’t get worse, commented on how now her mouth looked smaller without it. She knew he wasn’t being an arsehole, really he wasn’t, but he had made the comment in front of her mentor and the blonde bloke.  
She didn’t know what to say except for an awkward, “okay.”  
Sherlock was Sherlock, there was just nothing for it. He was too literal for his and anyone’s good, but she would put up with it, she would carry on.  
Because despite his seemingly cold nature he was a good man, a brilliant man, and even though her heart felt a bit crushed, she still clung to the night where did the most marvelous thing for her, for no apparent reason or gain. And maybe it’s because even though she was annoyed at him when they first met, before he opened his mouth she had been struck by him, his handsome features and fit form. And maybe the reason she’d reacted so annoyed around him after was because of that first jolt of something, that she never wanted to acknowledge.  
The rest of the day became a blur and finally she was able to get him, change into pajamas and pour herself a glass of the pinot noir Meena had gotten her for her Christmas that she hadn’t gotten around to opening. Sitting at her home desk, she opened her internet browser and logged into her blog page, wondering what she should say. The words were in her, she needed to get them out before they consumed her and turned her miserable.  
For Christ’s sake, it’s not like he knew she even had a blog.  
And so she typed.  
He was in again today and I still don’t understand him. One minute he’s noticing the tiniest thing about me and next it’s like I’m not there.  
After six years of being in each other’s lives on and off again, she thought she had basic knowledge of how Sherlock worked. But lately she wondered. Maybe what she thought she knew was all wrong, or maybe she was just all wrong. God, she really was becoming his little mouse and she didn’t like it, but she didn’t know what to do either. Getting mad it at him wouldn’t do, he probably wouldn’t even understand it. He completely missed the mark on so many interpersonal things, except, apparently, recognizing when she was or was not wearing lipstick or how it changed the perceived size of her mouth.  
Why was he looking at her mouth anyway? Not like it was relevant to him, that much was quite apparent.  
He said I was wearing too much lipstick and then said I wasn’t wearing enough. I just don’t know. Connie Prince will know. She’s fab.  
She gave a small smirk at the TV host, one of Molly’s small measure of guilty pleasures. Her blog had just meant to be something random and fun, but it had turned into basically being about her frustrated feelings by the second entry.  
And here she was with her third, sad missive.  
She looked around her empty, quiet flat.  
“Definitely need to get a cat.”

A few days later Molly Hooper was the proud parent of a beautiful white a great cat whom she named Toby, after decided it was way too on the nose to name him after ‘you-know-who’ as he became known on her blog. Things continued as always, and on one particularly grumpy night in late March somewhere before midnight, she updated her blog for the first time in ages and poured out her frustration yet again.  
She really, really ought to tell Sherlock to stop his blatant attempts at flirting to get what he wanted. It’s not like she wouldn’t help him anyway, there was no need to make it harder for her and yet she said nothing, and, as she regaled in her latest update, once he got what he wanted he was off.  
“At least Toby will never leave me.”  
She almost typed it, funny enough. She hit enter and went back to her notes, half musing on her latest blog update and hoping it ended at least with some humor and then her pen stilled, eye widening.  
She didn’t write ‘you-know-who.’ She had written ‘Sherlock’.  
“Oh oh oh...fuck.” she whispered to herself and frantically logged into her blog, trying to figure out how to delete and in desperation left herself yet another comment to no one but herself about her predicament.  
She didn’t expect to hear another ping two minutes later, from a Jim from IT.  
Oh god, someone ready her blog?  
At first she panicked, then wondered what he meant about her being the lady from the morgue with the nose.  
But then thirty minutes later, Molly Hooper found herself unexpectedly having coffee with Jim from IT, a rather cute bloke with black hair and eyes just as black who looked super casual in her tee shirt and trousers.  
Maybe, just maybe, things were looking up. 

***

Everything had been going along so well, as far as trying to solve the puzzles a criminal mastermind was leaving like breadcrumbs goes, even if John was being extra annoyingly moral that day and Molly extra awkward and distracted. He wondered if it was a change in hormones but no, her next cycle was two weeks away.  
When she came back into the lab with a new variable, well, person, in tow he had no idea one tiny, one-syllable word would send his day spiraling down. She made an awkward introduction, ‘this is Jim’, met upstairs, blah blah office romance? He’d seen the brief nervous look on her face as he quickly looked at her and to Jim. New boyfriend, greaaaat. Until his perception set loose and almost had to hide his pleased little smirk.  
It had taken two seconds to make the deduction, far too easy, and he wondered how Molly didn’t see it. At least this one wouldn’t be long-term distraction like the last one. He’d just said it out loud, of course he would it was the truth wasn’t it?  
“Gay.”  
“Sorry, what?”  
He could hear the measured change in her tone, and quickly went through the catalogue of human emotions in his mind that pointed to upset. Oh, perhaps he better wait to explain this one.  
“Nothing. Um, hey.”  
Molly was already awkward as it was these day, probably didn’t need to make it worse right now in front of this soon-to-be inconsequential boy. Besides, he had wanted to get back to sharing his results. Science was always the common language between them where her slower mind could somewhat keep up with his and it spared no room for confusion, unlike those times she felt the need to be sociable and he would say occasionally say something that seemed to maybe upset her but then she always covered it up with a smile. He just assumed she was used to it by now. But before he could get her reaction to his findings in walked Jim, spoiling a perfectly good moment of discovery.  
After some trivial pleasantries about meeting later at some pub, he could sense Molly’s mood had vaguely shifted. Had she pieced it together now? Good. The sooner she got rid of this Jim the sooner they could get back to what mattered most- the game.  
But as he glanced over at her again, he wondered if that was the direction she was headed. She seemed happy, might as well inquire so he mentioned those three pounds she’d put on, a logical deduction linked to her being happy enough to let that particular go for a bit. He had not realized, yet again, that was apparently not the thing to say.  
“Two and half,” she ground out, as if scraping the words through her teeth and looking more pressed as he corrected her again that it was three.  
Why was she getting mad?  
“He’s not gay!”  
Oh. There is was. She was not particularly pleased with the truth, but surely she was above denial? But from the sudden tightness of her features he could see he hit quite the nerve.  
For all his brilliance, he could have never deduced her next words.  
“Why do you always have to spoil…He’s not!”  
After getting into the semantics of it, and why of course Jim was gay based on the evidence, he could tell she was having a hard time seeing it. Ok then, the harder facts.  
“That plus the extremely suggestive fact he just left his number under the dish here…” he began, actually feeling quite annoyed Jim would even make a move like that with Molly in the room because that was not, how they said, done, “and I’d say you better break it off now and save yourself the pain.”  
She made no reply, instead running off without another word. He watched her go, confused that she was so upset and wondering if she was upset at him, and not Jim. It wasn’t as if Sherlock was the one lying to her, why be mad at him? But there was something in him that started to feel uneasy about this.  
“Charming,” John said, sarcastically, “well done.”  
Christ, was John judging him now? What had he done so horrible?  
“Just saving her time. Isn’t that kinder?”  
Of course John hadn’t been there to deal with Dave, whose mood shifts hiding the fact that he was actually married has caused Molly some kind of personal distress and since he really didn’t care to hear her worrying anymore he let her know about the wife. Molly hadn’t been the problem, he thought she’d see that, dump the bloke, and get over it. The others were a similar manner, dull and altogether not a good match. So he decided to move things along to their eventual conclusions and save her time. Wasn’t that the nice thing to do? Wasn’t he just sparing her from more pointless emotional minutiae?  
“Kinder? No, no, Sherlock, that wasn’t kind.”  
He almost wanted to growl out, “Well how should I know? She never complained before!” but realized it wasn’t worth the effort. No, Molly had never said anything before so as far as he knew she had valued his honest input. But then it occurred them, she hadn’t been having any of her boyfriends meet her at work anymore in the recent past, and he had never actually met the last two. Could it be that...she was keeping them from him? Keeping them away from his deductions?  
Her reaction a moment ago did seem to make it clear.  
He always has to spoil... what exactly? Wasted time going to the pub or watching crap telly? Her never being entirely fulfilled but letting things drag on because she thought it’s what she needed? Of course he also told himself that if she was dating it meant his carefully paid flatteries to get his way were less effective, and that it was also to his benefit that she not waste her time. Her attention was better served on him, for the work of course.  
Whichever way he thought he was justified, it was clear she had not been happy by it, and that what he thought was being kind might actually be coming across as cruel to her. He had just assumed she could figure it out by now, after six years. Sometimes, he forgot that while she was exceptionally brilliant amongst the small circle of his acquaintances, she still didn’t always understand. A pity.  
But he didn’t want to get into this further with John, who barely knew Molly or how she and Sherlock fit together or their history. Molly didn’t even remember John’s name well at the moment, so why hash out their interpersonal conflict further with someone who was a basic stranger to Molly?  
So he decided to shift subjects in the best way he always had when he didn’t want to discuss something anymore- deduction.  
Later, maybe tomorrow, he’d determine some way to make Molly less cross with him. It was vital she not remain annoyed with him too long, because he...the work, rather, relied on her cooperation and good spirits. And there was a small part of him, the part carefully constricted and leashed down, that was loathe to admit he did not enjoy upsetting his pathologist.  
His?  
He needed to focus on something else. Distract him from this brief, vexing segway into human emotions.  
This is why he didn’t do feelings, all so complicated.

**Author's Note:**

> Poor Molly, Sherlock really does not people well at all yet, and what's worse is he really thought he was being kind. Doubly worse, in a way Moriarty did succeed in driving a temporary wedge between them.  
> This was a harder one to write because unrequited love is so complicated sometimes, and to feel that towards Sherlock Holmes? Even more so. It's hard to straddle the line of making Molly not sound too pathetic or too complacent in her seemingly hopeless feelings, and to make it logical that she'd start feeling this way and keep feeling this over years but that it would take her ages to make any sort of move. But anyone whose ever felt unrequited love knows it's not always easy, and you try to move on, and sometimes you do, but sometimes that person is such a constant that it can be hard. Okay, that sounds a littttle sad but the point is that it's quite implied in the show that while Molly has definitely had these feelings for Sherlock, she's still made attempts to move and have other relationships, and TGG hints at that he's spoiled some of that for her in the past. I suppose this is what drew me to identify with Molly at first- because I know firsthand what it was like to love someone for years, longer than I should have, and never quite know how to make a move or move on.
> 
> But if that was hard, I admit I do find writing in Sherlock's headspace harder. Let me know how I did? Because even though there's set rules that the exposition tells us about his character in Series 1, they seem to soften around Molly. I mean we know why now, heh heh, but it does make writing Series 1 Sherlock an exercise in narrative and point of view. :)


End file.
